HENRY DOMST
Design Editor
I’ve been a part of a lot of aspects of Fredonia, but The Leader is one of my most memorable.
Coming out of my shell was something very important to me when I stepped on campus.
I was approached by the previous Editor in Chief Will Karr, who was one of my previous classmates, to check out The Leader and meet the Design Editor at the time, Alyssa Bump.
Since joining The Leader, Will and Alyssa have become role models and lifelong friends.
Coming to Fredonia as a graphic design student, I haven’t changed my major, but I have added another. It was up in the air between art history and computer science, but last year I would formally add art history as my second major, with computer science becoming my minor.
This addition would later go on to fuel my drive for activism with Students For Fredonia.
Earlier this semester, we traveled to Albany with 50 students to lobby the legislation. While we got the money we asked for from State University of New York (SUNY), the Chancellor and the Board of Trustees once again thought it was more important to send the majority of the money to the big four SUNY schools, with a plan to eradicate the smaller schools.
I am an incredibly determined artist, and took on the responsibility of showing my art in two separate exhibitions in one semester. The first was a show with one of my best friends Jimmy Keller, ‘Biophilia,’ where we explored the intersection of human relationships with nature.
The second was the senior show, ‘Midnight Oil,’ a yearly exhibition that comes to the Marion Art Gallery every spring semester, showing off the talents of 14 very talented artists.
The time I have spent in the studio has allowed me to grow and develop my passion.
I am incredibly thankful for receiving the Cathy and Jesse Marion Art Gallery Award for this senior exhibition.
I also stood as a visual arts and new media (VANM) Ambassador, a role that students take on to act as a tour guide for prospective students and a liaison between students and professors.
Being able to design a newspaper for my campus is one of the most fulfilling things I have experienced in my time here. Working as a team in a college setting has allowed us to experience and learn lessons. Every member of the staff has been nothing but kind and respectful, and I will miss everyone so much!
I also had the opportunity to design this year’s issue of The Trident, our college literary magazine. Working with a team of editors in an effort to represent the school year within a magazine was an intense but incredibly fun experience.
The countless relationships I have formed throughout my career at Fredonia will last a lifetime.
This upcoming fall, I will be enrolled at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, starting my M.F.A. in interior design.
I would like to extend a special thank you to every professor I have had a class with, and have had the pleasure of conversing with. Jason Dilworth, Megan Urban, Peter Tucker, Leesa Rittelmann, Michele Bernatz, Tom Machovitch, Michael Sheehan, Barbara Racker, Hyla Stellhorn, Lou Pozantides and absolutely everyone else — I cannot thank you enough.
You have allowed me to explore myself and grow as an artist and as a human.
I will end this with a critique of the SUNY administration: Chancellor King, if you really cared about the students of Fredonia, you wouldn’t be scared to meet with us and understand the importance of the arts at Fredonia. We need a leader who we are confident can represent everyone in the SUNY system. To the Board of Trustees, you should consist of only people who have graduated from SUNY; to understand what we are, you should be one of us. We need these funds, not the big four. I hope you can comprehend what this university means to the community, and none of us want Fredonia to vanish.
View my work at hdomst.com